Entry & progression
One year as First Assistant. No examination. 46 CFR 11.510, and 11.903(c)(6) confirms it: no exam for Chief Engineer. No tonnage limit of any kind. This is the top of the national ladder.
People are surprised by this, and they should not be. By the time you present for Chief Engineer you have already been examined at the management level as First Assistant. The Coast Guard has already asked its question. What it wants now is a year of you doing the job immediately below the one you are asking for, and nothing else.
NOTE — 46 CFR 11.510(a) — verbatim "(1) One year of service as First Assistant Engineer; or (2) One year… A minimum of 6 months of this service must have been as First Assistant Engineer, and the remainder as Assistant Engineer. Service as an Assistant Engineer other than First Assistant is accepted on a two-for-one basis to a maximum of 6 months."
The two routes
- Twelve months as First Assistant Engineer. The straight road.
- A year built from at least six months as First Assistant, with the balance made up of service as an Assistant Engineer in a lower grade, counted two-for-one, to a maximum of six months. This is the only place in the engineering ladder where the CFR counts in days: 11.510(a)(2) — two days as a Second or Third Assistant Engineer equals one day of creditable service.
Note the cap. The two-for-one credit is capped at six months of credit — so the most you can buy is half the year, and only by serving twelve months in a lower grade. There is no route to Chief that involves less than six months as First Assistant. The Coast Guard wants you in the number-two chair for half a year minimum, and that is not negotiable.
What the grade is actually called
46 CFR 11.501(a)(1) calls it "Chief Engineer." Full stop. No suffix. The word unlimited describes the absence of a propulsion-power limitation — it is a property of your ticket, not part of its name.
CAUTION — The CFR contradicts itself, so publish carefully 11.501(a)(1) names the grade "Chief Engineer." But 11.903(c)(6) — the very provision that excuses you from the exam — writes "Chief Engineer-Unlimited." Both are in the current CFR. The regulation is inconsistent with itself and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
The safest published form is "Chief Engineer (unlimited horsepower)." It is accurate under either reading. If you are filling in a form, use the wording on the NMC checklist for the endorsement, not the wording on this page.
What you hold
- No tonnage limit whatsoever. Any size vessel.
- Propulsion power as calculated — unlimited if the 11.503(b) sum reached 10,000 HP / 7,500 kW, and limited to a multiple of 1,000 HP if it did not. A Chief Engineer ticket limited to 2,000 HP is a real thing, and it is not what you want.
- The propulsion modes you have earned — steam, motor, gas turbine, or all modes (11.501(d)), with the one-third rule applied again at this raise of grade (11.502(a)).
- No exam. 11.903(c)(6).
And the STCW ticket that comes with it
This is where holding chief grade pays. Under Table 1 to § 11.325(d), a national Chief Engineer requires no additional sea service for the STCW endorsement as Chief Engineer Officer on vessels of 3,000 kW / 4,000 HP or more — the management-level ticket that a First Assistant, however senior, cannot reach. A Chief Engineer-Limited holder needs 12 months for the same thing.
WARNING — The horsepower limitation is still the wall at the top NVIC 15-14 requires a Chief or Second Engineer Officer applicant to "hold or qualify for a national endorsement for at least 4,000 HP." A national Chief Engineer endorsement limited to 2,000 HP will not carry an STCW III/2.
You can reach the top of the national ladder with a horsepower limitation still on your ticket, and discover that it stops you at the STCW gate. Buy the limitation back under 11.503(c) — six months in your highest endorsed grade on vessels of 4,000 HP / 3,000 kW or more removes all HP limits — before you need the STCW endorsement, not after.